Watch out, kids! Drug dealers are coming to your schoolyard to hook you on Strawberry crystal meth Pop Rocks! That’s the rumor going around Texas that has the PTA there so alarmed that it is warning parents to instruct their kids  not to eat, well, strawberry-flavored meth. Or grape meth. Or peanut butter meth. (Think of the allergies!) If I were the Texas PTA, I’d trademark the phrase “Meth-busters,” just to try to sound a tiny bit cool.
But, of course, I’m not them. I’m someone who read this delightful ribzresahf
little piece on Reason.com and realizes what an urban meth, er, myth this whole thing is. Nobody’s peddling strawberry-flavored meth, in part at least because you don’t EAT meth. You snort or smoke it. Moreover, if there had really been a rash of kids all rushed to the hospital in “dire” condition from candy-flavored illegal drugs, don’t you think this would be a bigger story?
What it really shows is that my premise, floated here in October, is true: Halloween has become the template for all parenting. The crazy fears we haul out on that holiday (that our neighbors are actually psychopaths who want to poison children on Halloween) have infiltrated the rest of the year (that our neighbors actually psychopaths who want to poison children on a daily basis).
Be not alarmed, my fellow citizens: There is still a big difference between Strawberry Quik and crystal meth. Although, I guess you could say they’re both pretty addicting.  — Lenore
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/drugs/candymeth.asp
I’ve posted a complaint on the PTA blog and sent the principal an email asking that she take care of this inaccurate information. I suggest the free range community speak up against this so we are doing something besides belly aching.
http://www.nisd.net/schools/info/160 (school info site)
http://myerspta.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/new-drug-in-schools/#comment-5 (Site claiming to be PTA for this school)
This story reminds me of the time my grandmother didn’t allow me to use the tattoos I found in cereal boxes ( tightly sealed name brand cereals) because she was afraid some wierdo in the factory put LSD into the tattoos. After a while things died down as an aunt wrote to General Mills, and they sent her a letter telling it was an urban myth. Finally Granny let me stick those Mr T. tattoos all over my scrawny eight year old arms.xD
Ooohhh… Amber… I remember the LSD tattoo myth!
Amber, I ssssooo remember that!
I don’t remember the tattoo myth, but I do remember the one about Micky Mouse Postage stamps that if you licked the back to stick them on a letter you’d get high because the backing was coasted in LSD.
I always love dispelling those urban legends with Snopes, especially when I get them from family members.
In junior high (early 70s) we used leave ziplock bags with a few Tic Tacs inside in places where teachers/ administrators who were convinced that 7th grade farm kids were all on dope were sure to find them. “Not sure if it’s downers or uppers, but it’s got to be dope.” Send in the clowns, with drug dogs.
That pop rock meth myth has been going around for years. It’s nothing new. Sad that people still fall for this stuff. My sister in law is one of those people. She is so gullible and believes everything she reads. I’m constantly sending her snopes links but half the time she won’t believe them because, “better safe than sorry.” Ugh.
It’s like we’ve morphed into a nation with absolutely no critical thinking skills.
There was some LSD thing in Northern California when my youngest sister was a kid. I think it was the stamps! Not postage stamps, but character stamps. Stickers. When you still had to lick those.
The pop-rocks thing I remember from childhood was that the carbonation could make something explode, and that if you ate pop-rocks with Coke, you’d die. Everybody ran around getting pop-rocks and Coke, just to test it. No deaths.
I remember the LSD tattoos/candy dots. Sometimes they were supposed to be PCP instead (angel dust).
@LoopyLoo, exactly. They stopped teaching logic as an actual subject about 70 years ago on a widespread basis, and it shows.
@jim, that’s too funny! I know my dogs have always hated the smell of mint. I wonder how the administrators interpreted the dogs’ reactions?
If someone managed to find a way to make strawberry flavored meth, do you really think they’re going to waste it giving it to a kid? Come on!
AHAHAHA!! “Peanut butter meth (think of the allergies)”… You crack me up!! 🙂
This strawberry meth email got passed around in our city several years ago. What amazed me was that it was sent to a bunch of teachers by a school principal who should checked his facts. (Yet another example of a school administrator setting a bad example.)
What gets me is the very real threat school children face everyday from medicated fellow students.
Many psych meds that millions of so-called “disordered” students are taking can actually CAUSE mania, aggression, anxiety, and suicidal behavior, (most school shooters were taking a psychiatric medication).
Yet school systems remain ignorant and say nothing.
I think their silence is mostly Ignorance but with a dash of false belief thrown in – the belief that “the kids need the medication to function normally in school- even though most of the kids are not functioning normally even with the meds.
So, where are the warnings from school administrators about the threat that medicated students pose to those around them? My wife is a school psychologist who has been told several times by her boss NOT to talk about psych med dangers. (which, by the way, often have the same side effects profile that illegal drugs have.)
My principal and most of the staff will send me these things, because I have an AT&T card and can check snopes. Sometimes it is blocked when it is about drugs or gangs.
Good news is they are dropping the staff filter the the bare minimum required by law after they get the new printers installed. (Networking has to do the printers.)
I have an old friend who emails these idiotic rumors around on an almost daily basis. I usually send the Snopes disclaimer back to him and everyone he emails. One day he called me and asked me to stop doing that. I told him that he’s just recirculating old disproved rumors and he told me that he gets this stuff from a reliable souce and that I’m just trying to cover up the truth.
I have to get smarter friends
I do have to say this . . . I worked for a hospital in Texas and did encounter elementary school children who would steal their parent’s, grandparent’s and/or sibling’s meds and sell them. This behavior was prevalent in some schools.
I say let’s round up all the gullible suckers who continue to pass along these bizarre rumors, lock them in a room somewhere, plaster them with LSD tattoos, then force-feed them crystal meth Pop Rocks and Coke (we’ll let them choose their own favorite flavors,) and watch them all get high and explode.
Maybe then those of us who still have a shred of common sense remaining will have less crap clogging up our email inboxes.
yeah, Andy, I made the mistake of doing that to one of my coworkers. the email was about telemarketers getting your cell phone numbers or something like that. It was grossly mis-formatted and typed in electric blue font. well she got ALL bent out of shape cause i made her look like an idiot and WELL! that email came “from someone who works at the phone company” just like that… THE phone company… there’s like six of them around here.. I look at the email again and OH NO! she thinks the guy works for a phone company because his email is @sbcglobal.net…. the levels of idiocy were mind-blowing.
Like they are going to share their meth with school children!
My husband and I are looking this up right now. He’s heard of the candy meth market in texas because he’s in law enforcement…we were both trying to figure out why it would be marketed to be eaten when meth doesn’t metabolize in the digestive system…while I’m sure plenty of eight year olds would try it and think they are getting high, if they ate enough of it, with the acids and industrial solvents involved, they are more likely to get a bad stomach ache than get high. BY THE WAY… you certainly wouldn’t try to smoke candied meth because burnt sugar smells AWFUL.
Actually, meth does metabolize in the digestive system. It’s a less instantaneous high than snorting, but it’s still highly effective.
Wonderous how myths travel round… The tattoo myth reached my school when I was about 8. I always thought it began with drug trying to get smuggled through customs disguised in the tattoos (they’ve tried weirder things). But really, I doubted anyone would give drugs away for free, after all the trouble. Especially to children who had no way of paying for them later, even if they became addicts. And I was 8 at the time. How come adults can’t figure this out by themselves???
Nonsense to many of the above. Everything you read on the internet is true! For example, if you read this reply and don’t run outside naked with lime jello smeared in your hair within the next 30 seconds, your hard drive will explode.
Yeesh! That email came to me a couple of years ago…by my son’s *teacher*. And I noticed that it had been fwd from a guidance councilor from the school system. It took all I had not to look up & send a link from Snopes to them. (I should have told her I was more concerned about his classmate who was allowed to watch whatever he wanted & was filling the other 3rd graders heads with foul & inappropriate stories.)
KeIB,
Please let the teacher know about the inappropriate conversation. I wouldn’t have known about the 5th grader graphically describing HBO porn movies to other 5th graders, if a parent hadn’t called me.
When I told the offending 5th grader’s Mother about this plus the fact her kid was falling dead asleep every day in class, she told me she couldn’t stop him from getting up after she goes to bed and watching this trash. I suggested she take the converter box into her room at night -she said, “Oh he’ll get mad at me if I do that” Cue me beating my head against the brick wall)
Don’t yell at her or accuse her of being a bad teacher. We can’t hear everything that happens at lunch or recess. Just let her know what is going on, so she can closely monitor the offending student. If she suggest you call the principal about it, please do. She isn’t brushing you off. We used this tactic to prove the problem a boy was causing in class earlier this year.
These terms have been used for meth before. Concentrated meth (high potency) was called “pop rocks.” If you overcooked it, it turned brown and was called “peanut butter.” Sometimes the chemist would be high (believe it or not) and mess up on the measurements a little. This often resulted in a pinkish tint which was referred to as “Rose” or “Strawberry.” They weren’t flavored and all tasted like meth because, as you mentioned, meth is snorted, smoked or injected. This was in the NW, slang may be different in other parts of the country.
@Jen – Yes, why would they waste this on a kid? I’m not surprised about these stories circulating, but I’m shocked how many of you have said that you heard this story from a TEACHER or PRINCIPAL. I have a colleague whose son is a police officer in an anti-meth unit in the NW. (Thanks for the insight into the slang, by the way, dar205). I’m sure there are units like this elsewhere. One telephone call to these officers that live this every day would have led to the true story. And even if the story WAS true, wouldn’t you want to involve the police pronto?
While I think the PTA and school systems freaking out is ridiculous, I do have to say that if you snort something you end up tasting it. My children got the H1N1 nasal spray and afterwards my son said, “It tastes like ….” (I can’t remember the flavor). I thought it was weird, but apparently they flavor the nasal sprays. Why is everything flavored to taste and sometimes look like candy? ergh.
Oh my christ. I am sooooo embarrassed to be from Texas.
And my parents wonder why I absolutely refuse to watch Fox News.
If anyone had asked me, I could put them straight. This myth was popular when I was in grade school!!!
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I just saw this circulating on Facebook recently, over two years after this post! People are still believing this nonsense. I posted a link to the corresponding Snopes article in reply. Snopes is so easy to check. Why do people blindly believe rumors instead of taking two seconds to check it out? Of course, the dangers of meth are very real and kids as a rule should never take candy from strangers, but common sense should rule over ridiculous stories like this.